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Friday, April 27, 2012

Time Management

Managing your personal and working time is one of the most challenging tasks of today's professionals. Life these days is so intense and complicated, business is so competitive, and a stream of information overwhelms us. Consider the internet, market globalization (when it is time for you to go home, the overseas branch is just beginning its day and, of course, they have a number of urgent questions), growing work requirements, and having to constantly increase your level of knowledge, you are starting to realize that there is no time for a personal life.

There is even no time to think because the boss demands that you "do" your job faster and faster so he can beat the competitors. The employment classes confuse us with recommendations like "make a daily plan and follow it" but how can we follow it when ten urgent questions constantly rise up and we have to solve them before we get to the plan. We need something on our hands to be able to deal with all this. That is when the time management knowledge becomes very important. But then we struggle with another problem - the variety of time management information. The variety of new time management guides and theories are just confusing us and we don't have time to read all of them.

Time management is not just a skill; it is a way of life. And only with this kind of attitude is it possible to find the time not only for work but for a personal life too. There is the common belief that time management is basically just creating project plans, charts, and following them. Those things actually cause the problems with the work schedule because they don't count on a lot of factors - "time killers" those that can't be expected by using the common project planning tools.

Lately, I've read about some new concepts in time management. The key idea of these concepts is to be able to create a balance of accomplishments in your life and work. In time management, it is important to use both order, and chaos. Before you start creating your own project plan, it won't hurt to observe yourself for a couple weeks and catch what kinds of things happen and why they are killing your precious time that you miss so much.

Based on this concept there are multiple layers in time management: controlling personal time, strategic time planning, tactics to manage yourself and others to achieve goals, and learn how to use the time management tools on a corporate level. Also we have to be familiar with different programs and technical tricks to organize your personal and work time, including organizing the time of people that you encounter at work and after work. Start this process from yourself and then spread it to other people that surround you.

Sounds kind of complicated, doesn't it? As I mentioned before, this is a totally new time management concept.

Time Management can't be selective. This is either a way of life or a constant fight with emergency situations. This time management concept demands a fundamental change in the way we handle business right now but at the end we will be rewarded correspondingly to our spent efforts and desire. The stated general principles and approaches of these new time management concepts are definite for everybody but the choice of tools is personal to everyone.